The Supreme Court has rejected the latest appeal filed by Papagayo Arena S.L., which has been trying for years to avoid the execution of the judgment that declared the hotel illegal. That ruling was issued in July 2007 and six years later, within the procedure for execution of the judgment, the Yaiza City Council agreed to require the property to initiate the legalization of the establishment, which to this day has not been carried out.
The decision of the City Council was appealed by the company first before the Contentious Court Number 5 of Las Palmas -which dismissed its request- and then before the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, which also rejected its appeal in 2017. Afterwards, it went to the Supreme Court, which has just issued an order, dated February 18, by which it agrees not to even admit the appeal for processing.
Thus, the order confirms the decree of the City Council -which did not appear in this procedure opened before the Supreme Court- and concludes that there is no grounds for cassation in the reason raised by the appellant, who insisted that when that requirement of the City Council arrived, the power to demand that urban legality be restored had expired.
"Inaction" cannot lead to "rendering a judgment ineffective"
In its appeal, the company argued that the work was completed since 2004, when it obtained a first occupancy license from the then mayor, José Francisco Reyes -who was already convicted in the Yate case for granting this and other illegal permits in exchange for bribes-, and that it was not until 2013 when the City Council required legalization. However, the TSJC stressed that what the City Council was doing was executing a judgment that ruled in favor of the appeals filed then by the Cabildo of Lanzarote and by the César Manrique Foundation, and that "ordered the restoration of urban order, which necessarily led to the need to initiate the legalization procedure, or if this was unfeasible, to order the demolition of what was built".
"It cannot be properly said that the procedure has expired, as it would be tantamount to admitting that through the inaction of the local administration it can be possible to render ineffective what was resolved in the judgment," the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands issued in September 2017, which is now final, stated.
In addition, the judgment recalled that in October 2012, the court already dismissed the claim to validate the licenses, ordering that the judgment be executed, which was the procedure initiated then by the City Council, so there can be no talk of expiry of the deadlines to restore the infringed order.
Closed access to the beach occupying two public roads
While this lawsuit was being resolved in the Courts, the property did end up submitting a project to legalize the hotel, but the City Council already analyzed it and rejected it two years ago, concluding that it was unlegalizable. Among other things, the technical report warned that a partial demolition of the establishment should be carried out, which among other things because it closed access to Las Coloradas beach, occupying two pedestrian roads with the building.
In addition, it pointed out that the solution proposed by the company to this, proposing the adaptation of two passages to the sea from other areas on both sides of the hotel involved "the modification of the urban planning provided for in the General Plan of Yaiza, and the modification of the planning cannot be processed as a building permit". As for the rest of the hotel's non-compliance with respect to buildability, setbacks and heights, it did not even begin to assess them, pointing out that they should be analyzed when a new project is presented that includes the recovery of the access roads to the beach occupied by the building, which "could imply the substantial modification of the hotel complex and alteration of all the urban parameters of the project".
